


The Mountain

by artemismoon12



Category: CPCoulter's Dalton, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 1942 Avro Lancaster, Angry Russian Teenagers, Angst, Atypical Prose, Bad Japanese Names, Hiking, M/M, cold shoulder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 00:39:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9266066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemismoon12/pseuds/artemismoon12
Summary: Yuuri runs off to a town without Internet- Victor and Yurio try to get him back, but only after they climb the mountain.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of an odd fix, purely because this is literally a dream I had yesterday. I woke up after it happened fully formed, so while for a dream it's pretty coherent, any weird things are purely because it was too funny not to include.  
> Y!!!OI fans don't worry about Shane Anderson- you don't need to know who he is, other than a dancer character from another story. Dalton fans- we're all Y!!!OI fans so I don't need to explain anything.

“Yuuri hasn’t called. Is he okay?”  
“Mila, he’s back home to visit his parents.”  
“And why aren’t you there Victor?”  
“Yakov would kill me if I took off again- besides it’s just a few days. Someone has to look after Mac- Yurio!”  
“It’s been more than a few days. The piggy should have called by now!”  
“Since when do you care?”  
“Call him.”  
…  
“Where is he? Oh okay. Sorry Mari I can’t really talk, I have to go.”  
“You hung up on her? Where is the piggy then?”  
“Not there.”  
“What?”  
“He’s gone.”

\---  
Yuuri had gone back to Hatesu. He had promised his parents he would visit more often now that he was training in Russia rather than America- the flight was shorter (slightly) and he wouldn’t let another five years go by. It was supposed to be less than a week- but when he landed things were already going wrong. Now he didn’t know how he could go back to Hatesu, let alone Russia. 

He took the train to the most remote place he could think of. Following a bus route he kept going until a cab let him off at the base of a mountain known for not much else other than it was tall enough to scrape the heavens. There was no internet, only three phones and a fax machine, and while the inn he arrived at still made him feel sick- there was no hot spring to be seen. 

The young owner of the inn had bought it on a whim. He hadn’t had much business in ages, only locals getting hot meals when they didn’t feel like cooking. He employed a cook, and a maid- but he did most other things himself. 

When Yuuri arrived he asked if he could help around town, maybe lifting things, carrying them- he wanted to bury himself in sweat and work as there was no ice rink to be seen. The owner, whose name was Shane, laughed and instead told him if he wanted to occupy himself he could teach some of the local children English. He would do it himself, but he was a terrible teacher. 

Not even Japanese, the American-Filipino chattered at Yuuri all day. He reminded Yuuri a bit of Minako in his graceful way of walking and mile-a-minute way of talking. Shane seemed to both fit, and stick out in the town, but then again so did Yuuri. Though maybe it was because Shane had looked Yuuri up and down when he’d proposed to make him an English tutor- saying it would be a shame to have such a beautiful young man ruin his body on manual labour. 

\--- 

“You’re going to Japan?”  
“Why would I not? I have to find him. He’s my fiance!”  
“Victor, you can’t just leave your dog with me.”  
“Then Georgi or Yurio can take him.”  
“Yurio’s cat wouldn’t like that.”  
“Neither would I! I’m coming with you!”  
“Yurio no.”  
“Like hell are you going to Japan again without taking me with you. I can’t have katsudon disappearing off the face of the earth before I beat him into the ground.”  
“You already got the gold-”  
“By 0.12 points! It doesn’t count!”  
“Well then Georgi has a new housemate. Come on then.” 

\---

The inn was quiet. Light brown wood and paper screens without a breath of wind to move them. Shane was laughing at Yuuri trying to teach two local kids whose parents were friends with Shane. The kids were trying hard to get the names for animals right- but Shane was distracting them in rapid English, then Spanish, then back to Japanese.

They might have gotten something under control if Victor and Yurio hadn’t burst in- looking like hell and Yuri being relegated to bag boy. 

Yuuri didn’t have a chance to ask what they were doing before Victor had pinned to the mat in a hug. The kids giggled and Shane had to send them away, no work getting done for the rest of the day. Victor was already trying to interrogate Yuuri out of love, his words blending between English and excited Russian. Yurio tried to dump the bags on Shane, but he just sidestepped and laughed. 

Naturally Victor and Yurio were going to stay at the inn until Yuuri decided what to do. Victor charmed the town and old ladies called him a vision of a young prince. Shane confided in Yuuri the old ladies were only being so nice to him because they thought he was a useless forienger, and pretty too look at- otherwise they wouldn’t tolerate his broken Japanese. 

Victor was allowed to lounge around but Yurio was a brat as soon as he found out there was no ice or internet in the tiny town. He would only admit he was miserable- not that he had come because he was geneuinely worried about Yuuri. Yurio wanted to skate with him- liked having Victor and Yuuri unofficially coach him. He let it slip once that he thought of them as friends but Mila was too close so he started swearing again. 

At the inn Shane put Yurio to work. The cook still found use for the teenager’s energy and leg strength by having him lift bags of rice flour for desserts in the back room. It was funny to see him run ragged, moving things according to the cook’s mood. The maid joined in on it, and it seemed to be a plot to build muscle on the teen. They found it funny to mess with the rich foreigners, just as foolish but even funnier than their boss. 

\---

“You just told me to put it near the stove!” Yurio yelled at the cook.  
“I changed my mind.” He said in halting English.  
“I’ll tell your boss you useless excuse for a-”  
“Tell boss what?” Shane asked poking his head around the corner. “Oh Yurio could you bring that flour out front?”  
“What?”  
“Unless you think you can’t handle it.”  
“No I’ll do it.”  
He grumbled all the way. 

\---

Shane owned a WWII era Lancaster bomber for some reason. He called it another thing he bought on a whim. He kept it in a field he uses as a runway. 

One day he flies it on a whim, Yuuri sitting beside him learning the basics of antiquated flight instruments. Shane said there was a legend the locals told him when he first came to Fujinaka. That a long time ago a young woman full of sorrow wished to forget her past and start anew. She climbed the mountain to the peak, freezing all her limbs in the process. She unflurled her wings and flew off the edge, wings of ice carrying the white snow crane to the lake below. 

Shane laughed, the story seeming too simple. But he explained the locals say the ultimate way to truly clear your head and yourself of your mistakes is to climb Mount Fujinaka, that same looming mountain across the lake from their little town. When you reach the top you are a blank slate, able to rewrite everything about yourself. 

Yuuri looked at the mountain out the window of the bomber. It reaches far into the clouds above, reflecting in the quiet water of the placid lake. The other side of the lake is untouched, unable to be transformed by human hands because of the steepness of the slopes.

The snow is already dusting the ground on that side of the lake, even in September. Yuuri wondered if he could truly become a new person, forget the past and be forgiven if he climbed the mountain to the peak. Perhaps he longed for it. He hadn’t planned this all out, but if it worked… 

\---

“Have you ever climbed the mountain?”  
“Oh yeah, many times. And each time I came back a different person.”  
“How?”  
“Once I was a dancer, then a pilot, then I climbed it one more time and now I own an inn. I’m still all those people, but not them at all. I’m curious to see who I become this time.”  
“This time?”  
“Well someone has to guide you to the peak. You can’t expect me to let you go alone.”  
“I hadn’t even said anything about climbing it.”  
“Ah but your face said it all.” 

\---

The day they leave to climb the mountain Victor and Yurio insist on coming along. Shane laughs, packing another two backpacks for them and telling them not to dawdle. 

The scenery is beautiful; towering trees of deep ash brown, with greens and blues and sunlight yellow. The snow is purple and white, with mist covering half the peak. They drive halfway up the base, bundled up in their gear as the snow begins to fall higher up the mountain. 

Shane tries to show them the way, but his chipper tour guide voice is lost on the rest of them. He continues to chatter without expecting a reply, though he tries to call out Yurio when he is trailing far behind. 

Victor asks Yuuri quietly why he just ran away from Hatesu, away from the rink and his family. He was expecting him back in St Petersburg but he never returned. He wished he had asked Mari when she was on the phone, but he had hung up so quickly he hadn’t the chance. 

Yuuri was quiet when he said he couldn't return. 

Yurio is harsh when he barks that Yuuri shouldn’t have run off. He’d been waiting to show off his quad lutz and rub Yuuri’s face in it. Victor exclaimed he didn’t know Yurio had been practicing that jump in secret- and Yurio coloured because he had been waiting to show Yuuri, as only Otabek knew (though he would be loath to say that to either of their faces). 

He huffed, blond hair covering his eyes as he made an excuse. Something about Yuuri couldn’t just leave him with Victor. Yuuri of course was the only one who can keep Victor from annoying them all to death. He would say later he liked how hard he worked alongside Yuuri- it made him stronger, made him become more beautiful on the ice. But he would only say it later to Yuuri alone in a roundabout admittance. Victor could never know. 

They broke for lunch. Shane tried to teach Victor how to start a fire, but it didn’t work well. They ate cold sandwiches in silence. Then they restarted their trek up the mountain. Heavy boots and mild pants accompanied their climb. 

Victor tried again to talk to Yuuri, who was cold still as his fiance tried to reach out. He said for such a long time he lived alone, and it had never touched him until meeting Yuiuri and having him absent from his life. His own family was gone when he was young, born at the fall of the Soviet Union there wasn’t much immediate family to begin with. His dad vanished before he was born and his mother started to drift when he began skating- an art form she could never grasp in the same way he breathed it in. No siblings, just a family in his rinkmates like Yurio. And now he had Yuuri’s family and Yuuri, he couldn’t imagine life without- 

Yuuri couldn’t take it- hearing Victor praise his strong family values and how much joy he’d brought to Victor’s life. Not now. It was an outburst but after it, Victor and Yurio were silent. 

Yuuri’s father was dead and it was Yuuri’s fault? And now it’s Yuuri’s fault Victor can’t have some picture perfect family anymore? 

What was he talking about? 

Yuuri blames himself- he had hidden it from Victor that his father was sick. It was supposed to only be pneumonia and the hospital was just a precaution. All of the family took shifts watching him, staying by his side. He ate, slept, and made Mari laugh with off colour jokes (and Yuuri blush with embarrassment). 

But on his shift, his all important shift, Yuuri couldn’t hold it any longer. His father was asleep, he’d be fine. Just five minutes passed when he left to go to the washroom, but when he returned the nurses wouldn’t let him in. A sudden cardiac arrest they said- but Yuuri knew the doctor was getting off, stopping CPR too early. If they would just let him back in he could do something, like he could have if he hadn’t left. 

Yuuri was supposed to be there, watching for danger and holding his hand through it. His dad was alone with doctors overtop of him when he passed, not like it should have been- in his sleep at the inn with family around him twenty years down the road. 

Victor tries to convince Yuuri it’s not his fault. Yuuri doesn’t want to talk. Yurio nudges Victor and says you can't fix this- you know you can't just fix everything. 

Yurio hikes a little behind Yuuri for a while. The snow gets colder and faster, wind picking up. The steps are deeper, harder to see the path. Shane warns there is no path up ahead as he scouts ahead, his footprints the trail for them to follow. 

\---

“You can’t fix everything Victor, especially not this.”  
“I can try, I just want to help.”  
“You know he’s an idiot, you both are. But you can’t just wave a wand and make it better.”  
“When did you become so wise Yura?”  
“Shut up old man.” 

\---

They set up camp, all of them sharing one large tent. Yuuri slept on the other side of the tent from Victor. Shane’s arm hit Yurio in the face. The night was cold. 

In the morning Victor makes no attempt to talk to Yuuri, who looks like he didn't sleep. Yurio is the one who jokes next to Yuuri and manages to get him talking again. In only the brash and angry way Yurio can, he goes on about his grandfather and how stupid Yuuri is. His own grandfather could go at any time, but unless there was a cord in Yuuri’s hand it isn't his fault. It's the fault of the doctors for not letting him back in, for not doing more. He had to kick a nurse last time his grandpa was sick so he could see him- but they still had to go through a process to let him back in. Doctor’s were stupid, and he was just lucky his grandpa had made it so long- Yuuri was unlucky, but not at fault. 

Yuuri laughs at the image of Yurio scrapping with a nurse. Yurio smiles like the 16 year old he is. He is learning violence isn't the way to get answers, but anger is still helpful. But coming to peace with things is even better. 

Yuuri asks where he learnt this- Yurio replies he has friends who value the silence, the calm. He's learning a different way. Yurio suggests Yuuri not be so cold with Victor who is just trying to help. 

Victor is allowed to walk next to Yuuri, with Yurio following the tracks Shane left ahead. 

\---

“I’m sorry.” Victor says quietly.  
“I’m sorry for being cold with you. I can’t promise I won’t do it again though.”  
“I know. Just try to speak with me.”  
“You know it won’t fix the way I am.”  
“But I can try to make you feel better. Not fixed, but better.”  
“That would be nice. If you remember to do so.”  
“Hey! Yuuri, my memory is not so bad!”  
“Yes it is.”  
“Sure.” 

\---

When they look up from their shared smiles it is Yurio dissapearring and an echoing scream.

The two of them rush forward. Shane’s footprints had shifted enough in the snow that Yurio could not follow them that well. The edge of the unmarked path and the sky blurred together in a grey white expanse that Yurio had simply walked out into. 

His hands caught the rock base of the snowy trail, but it took both Victor and Yuuri to haul him back up onto the path. Yurio’s grip was frozen into place as Victor and Yuuri held him close. He was shaking from fear, of coming so close to sliding down the side of the moauntin. It wasn’t’ a sheer drop, but had he slid down the side he would have hit every rock on the way down. 

It was too late to turn back now. Heavy packs on their backs and wind whipping at their faces they could only go forward. Yurio is quiet, gripping the back of Victor’s pack as Yuuri flanks him from behind so they climb close to the cliff face in single file. None of them are taking risks. 

No more conversations. The rest of the time is focused on the climb in poor visibility. Shane returns and they all keep close. Shane mentions they are almost near the summit, which narrows to a tip and plateau. They start using their hands to scale the side. Ropes are brought out. 

They all hook one another to the summit, climbing until the tip of the mountain is in their grasp. They see through the clouds, the sun peaking out and grin. 

It is breathtaking, literally stealing the words from their mouths and throwing them into the wind above their heads. Purple and white peaks, with green ice and distant midnight blue waters down below the grey and violet clouds. The snow reflected brilliant white reflections and arcs across the sky, showering them in light. It is beautiful. 

Yurio lets himself be hugged by Yuuri, who in turn is kissed by Victor on the cheek. Yuuri whispers into Victor's shoulder that it's not the destination, but getting there- and Victor's getting much better at working his way up. Victor replied he'd always just won gold medals; he didn't have to change that much before- now that the goals are different? He's trying, but he won't ever try to just fix Yuuri rather than work with him to get them there. 

Yurio admonishes them for being sappy and demands to know how they're getting down. Shane laughs and ask him what he thought the parachute and gliding suit he was given was for. They gave him a blank look, but discovered the equipment in the bottom of their packs anyways. 

The tale said they had to take the chance and jump off the peak. Only then could they grow the ice white wings and fly away. For once, Yuuri trusts in himself and leaps. 

\---

They sail through the air, around the peak, then the body of the mountain. He sees the blue of the lake, and the sunlit houses of the town. The sand of the lakeshore cushioned him and his parachute with a thud. Grains flew up as he tumbled across into a child’s sandcastle. 

Victor lands a few steps over while following Yuuri, the first to jump off the peak into open air. Yuuri is so pleased to see him he knocks him over with a kiss. The sand gets all over their gliding suits, but Victor doesn’t seem to care as he peppers Yuuri’s face with kisses and exclamations of love. 

Yurio curses as he lands in the lake and has to be dragged out. 

They don't know where Shane is- but they see the WWII Lancaster flying around the base of the mountain- which regardless of how it got up at the peak- shows them Shane is okay. The plane does a loop over the town, skims the surface of the lake, and flies off in the direction of the airport. 

They realize they should return to St Petersburg soon so they plan. Yuuri walks around the town one last time. Most waved. The two children called him a ‘bird’ to thank him for their three solitary English lessons. 

Hinoka- an old man who makes paper flowers gives Yuuri a bouquet of them in white and blue tissue as a going away present. He said Yuuri brought a sense of beauty to their sleepy little town, and he will not forget it. Yuuri is touched, and cradles the flowers as he walks. He does not process much after that, all the well wishers are waves on a shore which has already been washed away. Just one more wave. 

Victor has made dinner to show he has actually be retaining skills Yuuri and his family have shown him- though they still got a lot of takeout in St Petersburg. Yurio made the rice and packed the bags. They sit down, and know they will never forget this trip. 

Shane bursts into the inn kitchen, which had closed for the night for guests/the chef anyways. He says he is loathe to let such a good teacher go, but it is time. He tastes some of Yurio's cooking and says it might be for the best because he can't keep taking Victor's money when he can't contribute anything. Prince of the Town he might have been named, but only because he is generally useless. Yurio exclaims that is his rice! (It's crunchy) and Shane samples the soup instead. He declares the kid can go but Victor can stay. Yurio nearly decked him. 

Shane mentions he got a phone call from Yuuri’s mother and sister. As the town had not internet he decided to pass along the message that they want them to stop by before leaving Japan- if only to visit the shrine. Yurio doesn't argue, if anything it's Yuuri who looks the most reluctant. But Victor squeezes Yuuri's hand in reassurance. 

Things work out fine. 

\---

“There was no internet? At all?”  
“Why would I lie about something like that Mila! I got ordered around by some crazy American and worked to death by his damn cook! If I had Instagram I could have just been taking pictures the whole time!”  
“So I don’t even get to see this place? You didn’t take a single photo?”  
“Um Yurio, they still had phone chargers, just no Wifi.”  
“Now you tell me katsudon?”  
“Don’t worry Yura~ we can always go back!”  
“Get off me old man! I’m telling Yakov!”  
“Wait there he is- everyone scatter!”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry I killed Yuuri's dad but that was the whole premise of my dream. The dream didn't fill in how he died so I did edit in the scenario- which is pretty sad. I'm sorry.  
> \---  
> Shane Anderson- a dancer character from CPCoulter's Dalton. Despite being a Filipino American my dream decided to make him an inn owner who speaks fluent Japanese and flies planes. He's odd enough so that's cool. He's a little like Victor- in that his own story he is totally enraptured/love at first sight with a cute talented artist boy. So maybe that's why I dreamt up this weird crossover.  
> \---  
> 1942 Avro Lancaster Bomber- a rare WWII era bomber of which two are still operational in the world. I've spent time around one and my granddad fixed Canadian and British planes during the war so I know they're actually quite agile- though huge and bulky as fuck.


End file.
